When does a diet cross over into an eating disorder

I'm always open about my long battle with eating disorders and tried an actual conventional commercial diet last year

I'm actually normally anti diet industry as its an industry that cashes in on societies stereotypical idea of what we should look like and doesn't necessarily consider health. 

As a society weight loss is praised however it is achieved and as I'm overweight I need to lose weight. But eating disorder therapy told me to eat 3 meals 3 snacks, don't weigh yourself and don't count calories and your body will find its own "set point weight", the weight it is naturally healthy at. This goes against other medical professionals idea that we have to fit into a certain bmi range to be healthy as someone's healthy set point weight could be higher than that bmi range and also would mean having to accept myself whatever weight which I find impossible to do.

The diet I was doing kept showing up on my Facebook page. I had been struggling with my eating disorder in a cycle of restricting and bingeing and wasn't in control of my weight at all. I had some eating disorder therapy but was only 10 sessions which wasn't long enough to test out the set point weight theory and didn't tell me what to eat, amounts and when to eat it and I can't trust myself with my history of either eating too much or too little. At the start of the eating disorder therapy i did try 3 meals, 3 snacks and did lose weight but in my head not fast enough and I didn't think I would be able to maintain it once therapy stopped. The diet consisted of meal replacements and advertised to have 800 calories if over a certain bmi (which I am) or 1200 calories if got less weight to lose. When I told the eating disorder therapist I was going to try this diet near the end of my therapy she suggested not doing the diet but if do don't go below 1600 calories. 

When you suffer with a restrictive eating disorder there is a negative voice whatever weight you are telling you you're too fat, you don't deserve to eat and makes you feel guilty about every calorie. When I was smaller I still thought I was too fat. When I was smaller it was maintained by being sick or not eating yet I was socially acceptable and because I wasn't a low weight my gp wasn't concerned neither were mental health services despite me saying I was struggling. Rationally I know bmi doesn't indicate health.

I joined a Facebook group for the diet I was doing it wasn't medically monitored at all and had no medical warnings. There are other similar diets that are dearer that warn against doing low calorie diets if you have or have had an eating disorder and/ significant mental health problems. When I first joined the diet I was motivated to try "diet" in a less disordered way, it worried me that there was often advice on the Facebook group telling each other how to not eat such as have an oxo cube, chew gum etc. and other eating disorder type tips to be honest. I actually often told other people it was healthier and more maintainable to lose weight on 1200 to 1400 calories and is actually dangerous to go too low as I have seen friends die from eating disorders and my own eating disorders have caused health problems including gallstones and made a hereditary heart condition worse. I managed to do the diet for 11 weeks and last year lost 3 stone but then nearer Christmas I started struggling with my mental health and my bulimia took over again. I stayed motivated with choir gigs but mentally I was starting to struggle. 

In January I decided like we all do new year new diet or back to the old one but it got where the eating disorder voice got stronger and made me feel guilty about every calorie and it got where I was even feeling guilty about the meal replacements and replacing them with lower calorie foods. Restricting then often leads to bingeing and then the guilt leads to having to be sick and you end up in a vicious cycle and a hamster wheel that you get stuck on.

In February things came to a head, I took on alot of work and volunteering as well as struggling living on my own still and although I love choir I have social anxiety, the only things that don't make me anxious are my bed and my pets, which means I had a build up of anxiety which always makes the eating disorder thoughts worse then Restricting led to me becoming depressed and I took an overdose as I couldn't fight the thoughts anymore.

I've stayed motivated with choir and that stopped me getting in a cycle of overdoses but the eating disorder thoughts just seem to be getting stronger and I'm stuck in a cycle of restricting, bingeing and purging although it's got where I feel guilty about all calories and the binges are literally just the food my body needs but the guilt leads to having to be sick after most of that too. That has led to some self harming again which I hadn't done for a long time and only happens when the thoughts get too hard to fight. I don't know how I'm going to get off the hamster wheel.

In 2019 I was in a more positive place I had just started to get confidence at choir, I was going to a group therapy for personality disorders 3 days a week and did a sponsored swim. I swam 22 miles in 12 weeks and for probably the only time in my adult life I saw food as fuel rather than calories to avoid and I was a similar size to I am now but mentally was in a good place. I maintained that until lockdown then when I was at home alot around food my disordered thinking and eating returned. There were times I got on top of it more than others. At one point choir were doing a healthy eating and exercise group and I joined it with good intentions but I struggled with the exercise post covid and there were times I would feel guilty about eating if I hadn't done the exercise but I had good and bad days with it and when I first started the commercial diet I had a main meal a day which was some of the pinch of nom healthy recipes or anything else calorie counted. 

In my eating disorder thinking I always think if I'm fat people will judge me for eating so I think if I lose weight I will feel better about that but the vicious cycle is a conventional diet that will do that triggers my eating disorder voice and other mental health problems so I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I'm struggling with my physical health and energy levels and mentally struggling general too but I also have choir and horse riding goals I want to achieve and was going to do a sponsored swim but at the moment even they're not strong enough to fight with.

I just want to be healthy but it's just so hard